With the recent upsurge in insecurity across the country, especially in the Northern part of Nigeria, one would be tempted to ask: is the federal government really bent on nipping the menace in the bud or simply playing to the gallery?
A lot of things may have pointed to the fact that the federal government has not really summoned the political will to curtail these rampaging terrorists. Before some of these attacks are carried out, these criminal elements often write to the village heads about the impending attack. Alarmingly, nothing is done even when these village heads, amidst panic and fear, raise the alarm about the possible attack. This explains why these terrorists, who go about their nefarious activities, on bikes, would ransack an entire community for two straight days without a soul being apprehended.
At a time, Nigerians thought that their leaders across boards should get serious with the governance of protecting lives and property, it was a time to play politics. Our governors, ministers, senators, federal lawmakers and other top government functionaries are busy endorsing President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for a second term in office. The Northern leaders under the aegis of Northern Bridge Builders Forum, while endorsing the president for a second term recently, said their decision was sequel to the good performance of President Tinubu in the last two years as evident in the improvement of security, economic revitalisation, implementation of the local government autonomy and restoration of peace and national unity.
The truth remains that security of lives and property has not improved under Tinubu’s administration. The facts are there! In its 2024 Crime Experience and Security Perception Survey, the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported that 614,937 people were killed in Nigeria between May 2023 and April 2024.
The Hum Angle’s March 2025 Conflict Tracker, revealed that 1,420 lives were lost to insecurity and 537 people kidnapped across the country in the first quarter of 2025. The report also revealed that 475 insecurity incidents occurred across the six zones within the period. According to the tracker, “between January and March 2025, the North West witnessed 114 incidents resulting in 400 deaths, while the North Central followed with 100 incidents and 367 fatalities. The South West recorded 78 incidents and 153 deaths – the highest among the southern zones – but still below the figures from the North.”
It might be necessary to reiterate that the primary duty of the government as enshrined in Section 14(2) of the 1999 Constitution is protection of lives and property as well as carter for the welfare of the citizens. But lo and behold, this is certainly not the priority of this current administration as our politicians are preoccupied plotting and scheming on how they would be re-elected.
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Unfortunately, and sadly so, while the killings of hapless Nigerians were going on in Plateau and Benue states, the president, on April 2, 2025, jetted out to France on a two-week working visit. Since his inauguration, Tinubu has embarked on his fifth trip to France and 25 international trips altogether.
As much as these trips are necessary towards strengthening Nigeria’s bilateral relations with other countries, it should not be at a time when people you were elected to carter for their welfare and security are being killed and displaced by criminal elements. In other climes, we have seen where the president cancelled such official trip, just to show sympathy and empathy with those affected.
There is so much noise in the media about the fight against insecurity. In one of its press briefing this year, the Defence Headquarters reeled out series of achievement by the military in combating insecurity through various strategies, including psychological operations, enhanced collaboration, and community engagement. Inasmuch as the military has recorded some reasonable progress in the fight against insurgency, the fight is indeed far from being won.
Recall that in 2015, the former Minister of Information and National Orientation, Alhaji Lai Mohammed led a team of local and international journalists to the epicentre of insurgency and told Nigerians and indeed the international community that Boko Haram has been ‘technically defeated.’ Again, in 2019 during an interview with the in Lagos, he still maintained that the insurgents had been decimated.
“I stand by what I said that Boko Haram is ‘technically defeated’. What we are having today is global terrorism where you have the ISIS, ISWAP Al-qaeda all working together. Terrorism is a global issue. Between 2009 and 2015 we were fighting Boko Haram, but today we are fighting global terrorism where the remnants of the Army in Syria are now joining hands with the ISWAP and others,” Lai Mohammed explained.
In fact, the gospel truth is that the fight against Boko Haram and other criminal elements is far from over. The wanton killings and destruction of lives and property have continued unabated by these die-hard terrorists. The recent attack at a military base in the Marte Local Government Area of Borno state was a clear indication that it is ‘not yet uhuru’. Borno state has 27 local government areas and before now, only Marte local government was free from terrorist, but now has been captured.
In April this year, the Borno State Governor, Professor Babagana Zulum, was shouting on top of his voice concerning the resurgence of Boko Haram, but he was paid little or no attention. He was even optimistic that the government could end the scourge of terrorism in six months if it was able to remove ‘contractocracy’ – “a situation where the anti-terrorism system benefited principally the interests of contractors rather than broader national interests.”
With these incessant attacks by terrorists on soft targets, it is high time the creation of state police became a viable option in our security architecture. This is why the Northern Governors Forum (NGF) should be commended for endorsing the creation of state police as a crucial step to stemming the escalating insecurity across Nigeria.
In a communique issued at the end of its meeting in Kaduna, the forum chairman and Governor of Gombe State, Inuwa Yahaya pointed out that the current centralised policing system was grossly incapable of confronting the scale and complexity of local security threats, particularly in the Northern region and therefore called on the National Assembly “to expedite action on the enactment of the legal framework for its take-off.”
Similarly, former Ekiti state governor and one-time chairman of the Nigeria Governor’s Forum, Kayode Fayemi noted that the call for state police was an extension of true federalism as each federating unit is supposed to have control of its security apparatus. “In terms of wider knowledge of what obtains in my locality, the best person to use is somebody from that locality who has a much better understanding and will be faster in responding to the immediate needs of that environment,” Fayemi noted.
Even those conservatives, who had argued against the creation of state police because governors could use it for political or personal gain, and undermine human rights and security are now singing a different song. In fact, those who argued that state police would further empower the governors to suppress their political opponents are placing politics above security of lives and property. Are governors not oppressing their political opponents even without state police?
No matter how deep or shallow you look at it, policing is essentially a local affair, and the best people to police a locality are usually people from that locality. If the United States of America, where we modelled our federal system, has functional state police, why can’t we have it, knowing it can go a long way to checkmating the insidious activities of Boko Haram and other criminal elements?
Security experts have argued that state police is capable of addressing the country’s security challenges, enhance governance, and foster democratic accountability. The next election is still two years from now and it makes no sense why people who called themselves leaders should be talking of re-election while innocent bloods are being shed almost on daily basis.
Currently, the staff strength of the Nigerian Police Force is abysmally small. A population of over 200 million citizens cannot be adequately policed by less than 400,000 personnel. The current ratio of police officers to citizens is about one officer to every 600 citizens, which is lower than the UN-recommended ratio of one to every 450. A large chunk of our police officers are deployed to provide security for Very Important Persons (VIPs) and this has become a worrying trend as many of them have resorted to carrying hand bags for the wives of their VIPs.
In 2021, the government of President Muhammadu Buhari acquired some A-29 Tucano Fighter Jets worth over $1bn on loan to help in fighting insurgency. Today, the impact of these jets has not been felt. This frustration and seeming lack of result has forced Senator Abdul Ningi from Bauchi State to ask during plenary: Where are our Tucano Jets? Why are they not been deployed in fighting these insurgents?
What about the various operations launched to counter insurgency such as ‘Operation Lafiya Dole’ and ‘Operation Safe Haven’? The military needs to go back to the drawing board and re-strategise its mode of operation. There is a need for the military to review its operations – properly dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s.
Politics aside! We are talking of human lives here! Creation of state police is critical to addressing the insurgency currently wreaking havoc in some states, especially in Borno, Plateau, Benue, Zamfara, and Katsina. This is the time to move from empty rhetoric to concrete actions.
Again, President Bola Tinubu should stop listening to praise singers and sycophants around him and visit these affected communities to see things for himself. That way, he will be endearing himself to the people.
